The Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (RAFT) Project in Southwest Virginia: Integrating Resilience, Adaptation and Renewable Energy in Appalachia

Abstract

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​Increasing community resilience to climate impacts across communities in Virginia, and the United States, requires different approaches, considerations, and process adaptations. Even more challenging can be developing a tool that works in a specific and unique context, in this paper’s case, Appalachian Virginia. “Resilience” can be understood in so many different, and often contradictory ways, that a precise definition is required in order to develop a process that will be effective, understandable, and durable.1 Building on the success of a long-standing program - The Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (The RAFT) - in the coastal and central parts of Virginia, this paper explores the process through which the framework was adapted for use in two Appalachian Virginia localities – Carroll County and Dickenson County - and successfully implemented. Key components of the adaptation were consultations with regional bodies, local governments, stakeholders, and community members, the addition of a locally positioned community liaison, as well as incorporation of scholarship regarding community engaged research, both generally and in Appalachia. A detailed discussion of these changes is included in the article that highlights rationale, process, and outcomes.

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There is also an exploration of how this adaptation of The RAFT framework can be a vehicle through which controversial issues can be considered as a part of a broader resilience strategy. In this case, renewable energy was embedded in The RAFT process in order to discern if its inclusion in a broader resilience process would affect attitudes towards renewable energy in a region that is facing the decline in traditional energy production methods and contending with alternative energy production as a potential neweconomic driver and resilience strategy.2,3 There is some evidence to indicate that inclusion of these issues shifted attitudes of participants, but there are limitations on any generalizable takeaways due to limited sample size. However, the way data was collected, the process that created the opportunities for consultation with community members, and the sectors represented, can provide insight into effective engagement and collecting information about renewable energy and other issues through a community-oriented, asset development lens. Clear lessons about The RAFT process as a vehicle for engaging communities in addressing relevant, and often controversial, issues can be ascertained and contribute to community-engaged research scholarship. This location-specific adaptation of the original RAFT framework can also provide lessons and best practices for other regional or cultural adaptations of this framework and other similar frameworks. Further, the incorporation of best practices from community-engaged research scholarship, as well as a culturally sensitive and asset-based lens, has produced “lessons learned” that can contribute to future community resilience scholarship and study.